Falling into Dusk
by RoseWren
Summary: Kagome has lost her memory, and cannot, by some feat of her mind, see those of the Feudel Era. They are lost to her. But now a path to regain all that she has lost is lain before herdoes she have the courage to take it?
1. Falling

"_Just love me the best you can and I think we'll get along alright."_

"_Is this what love looks like?"_

"_It was a ruby that she wore…_

_In a chain around her neck…_

_In the shape of a heart…"_

She weaved her fingers into his shirt.

"Give me a masquerade, dammit." Her breath, heavy with the sickening tang of alcohol blew over his face.

"A masquerade?" Jim echoed dumbly, taking hold of her shoulders when she slumped against him. "Fredrick? Do you know…"

The tall man beside him shrugged, picking up the crumpled girl easily and bearing her away inside the house.

She was of a high school age with smoky black locks that blew past her shoulders in waves and a slim build. A yellow school bag was clutched in her grasp, cradled to her chest, and a dangerous, jaggedly-cut stone lay in the nook of her shoulder from a thong on her neck. Her uniform lay in tatters upon her form and numerous cuts criss-crossed over her features and delicate skin.

"Hentai…" She muttered and he leaned down to hear her, depositing her upon an embroidered bed-spread and then tucking her in with a light blanket. He had found that summer nights were warm in Japan.

She occasionally shuddered, blinked, ran her tongue across her lips and wept. Each movement brought the men to her side; Fredrick rocking her and singing hymns repetitively while Jim smoothed her hair and brought water to cool her skin. They did not know how to care for her, having had little experience with womenfolk in their small, old-fashioned town; they were missionaries, seeking to bring new life to their small way. Yet they cared for as they could, as best they could.

Her eyes remained firmly closed throughout the night as the men awaited for the awakening of their decidedly off guest.

She awoke later that evening, but passed out as soon as she had deposited her stomach's contents onto Jim's shirt, yet Fredrick patiently wiped her with soft, butterfly-light touches. Over night, with her apparent beauty and sleepy innocence, she had become an idol.

Kagome knew not how long she hovered in that state of half-consciousness, that state of starless infinity, of butterfly-soft touches upon her wan cheeks, songs with breaths of life that blew through her and through her mind, catches of repetitive snatches, and haunting spirit eyes that spoke volumes of a haunted soul.

Memories swirled before her, visions of old friends and older occurrences tumbling, ripping, screaming through her head, tearing and past her lips and out. Somehow it didn't matter now who the spirit eyes belonged to, she didn't…couldn't…and the masquerade still danced and sang; they still swirled in their coats and frills of sunny smiles and lacey frowns, their eyes always glowing like red-hot coals.

"And the masquerade still danced? Still sang? Still loved me as well as I loved you?"

"It is her, no? Do you not see it, my brother?" Jim asked gently; Fredrick's hand traced the milk carton picture, his face etched with an unintelligible emotion.

"She is beautiful. A dusk rose."

His eyes turned to the figure in the bed, and walking to it, he permitted his fingers such a luxury as they had always yearned, traveling over her sculpted features. "She's bound back?"

"''Fraid so." Jim did nothing to stop Fredrick's pursuit, only watched in grim understanding.

"Then we shall let her." Said Fredrick with such an unaccustomed heaviness that Jim stared at him long and hard before, nodding, patted his brother's shoulder and dialed the phone.

"I will." Fredrick gestured to the phone and passed it between both hands before putting his mouth to the receiver.

"Hello? Yes, this is Missing Persons? I have something to report…"

((())) Two days later…

Kagome could not stand their stares, these people who were her family. Family, it was a funny word as she could not remember one of them.

The old man muttered and had bad breath. The boy cried and looked at her a bit too hopefully; she was not the one he remembered, only one who looked like her. Mother smiled even through her crumpled mask; Kagome believed she liked her, even if the Masquerade was the only thing they had in common. There was no Father and it was something Kagome knew not to ask of.

They piled into the car, the small minivan sagging under their weight, and Kagome suffered through a brief, tense car ride "home."

"Kagome, hun?" She took off up stairs; racing instinctively to what she knew was her room.

"See you've found your room." Her mother remark almost dryly, coming in and shutting the door behind her. "All I want to do is talk." She said, holding up her hands before her in a quelling gesture.

"There seems to be nothing to talk about." Mother nodded solemnly.

"Oh Kagome," She sighed, and it was if a dam had been let loose inside her, but she spoke more to the open window then to the stranger, her daughter, beside her.

Cherry blossoms littered the desk underneath the window and Mother lifted herself to sit upon it, scooping up the pale petals and flowers into her lap and picking them apart.

"You were gone so long. Your friends, Hojo…and the others, they came every day but most…most lost hope eventually. I don't suppose you know how long you were gone? No, but six months. You'll have to go on independent study…" She stared out at an abandoned well and Kagome stared at her. "We gave up. You don't know it is to see you here…and then again, you shouldn't. It so beautiful, so terrifying, and so… please," Kagome looked away. "You understand don't you? That loss."

She stood suddenly, brushing the crumpled, broken bodies of the sukura from her kimono and sweeping out of the room. Kagome could only stare after her, not quite comprehending what had passed between them, or perhaps between the wall and her mother, having the feeling that perhaps this woman had come up here to talk before. Her hands rested on her lap and her expression morphed into one of thoughtfulness.

She pulled the sukura into her laps and could almost hear a voice in her ear: "…Loves me will….loves me not….and we'll dance round and round in the candle light…"

"How is she?" The demand came from a shadowy corner of the room, one in which the shadows seem in a fight with an invisible entity to lay right, rippling in a shadowy pool of twilight.

"I don't know, all I had to go on that she was alive was a mother's intuition. It's a stranger in there now; a terrible thing to say now that I have so much, her, back, but I can't help it. When I look in her eyes, it's not Kagome I see." She seemed to waver for a moment, her mask quivering. She sank against the wall, her voice now almost muffled, "I just don't know. Those men were kind enough to her, but, oh kami…how did she get to this state? What was so terrible…?" She let the question hang, hoping for an answer. "Masquerade: that's what they said she kept repeating…"

She felt a hand upon her shoulder and she clung to it, her mask disintegrating into wracking sobs that seemed to bite into the whole of her being.

The shadow did not know what to say, something that had never occurred in life, and could only hold her hand and pray.

"Kagome, please."


	2. Allusions

Chapter 2-

There's a sorrow that cripples, one that seems to suck the life from one's lips, conjures images of skin dripping from bones like wax, blood falling into an eternal fire to cloak the stars with a coppery, foul smelling smoke, and bones sinking through oceans of tears to a silt of silence, waiting.

Kagome stared listlessly at the tree beyond her window, 'Grandfather Tree', and tried to ignore everything but its imperfect visage. It was spring; the tree let a rain of delicate blossoms whose scent clung to anything it touched, an indescribable light scent that enveloped the senses, made the world seem but a passing place. Eternal, any who smelled it sighed as a way to identify it; creepy she would say and duck away.

She had begged for its removal, "Cut it down! Anything!" She had wept, bled at his feet but the old man had only muttered and enlisted the aid of Mother to help move her to her room.

They had installed blinds as a way of compromise but they had always crept up by the end of the day, exposing her to its impenetrable, accusatory gaze.

Then she started hearing voices.

They started as incoherent whispers, and she dismissed them as malicious wanderings of her mind. She had been spending far too much time by herself.

But then they began to take on form, words she could understand; words that awoke within her something that had been sleeping; she began to pity, feel compassion…understanding and empathy. She almost wept.

There was a silence at the table that night, as if all that had been left unsaid now weighed heavily upon everyone's minds. Kagome grimaced into her food, her eyes coals rather than fire.

She toyed with some steamed vegetables, and her mother gently offered her some Ramen with a careful expression on her face.

At once there was a flash, but then it was gone.

"Thanks," She said, ignoring their disappointed stares as she spooned some onto her plate.

Mother sighed and Souta rocked back and forth.

"Why don't you remember them?" He spoke suddenly, fixing her with a glare "Inuyasha came everyday you know; everyday to see if you had been found, to go out hunting for you, and never once said that we weren't going to find you! What's wrong with your head?" He hurled a spoon at her and raced up the stairs.

A silence reigned at the table and a steel seemed to enter Kagome's eyes. "What's wrong with him? I may not be sure of many things, but I know I've never heard of Inuyasha before!"

Mother politely excused herself and walked stiffly up the stairs. Dismayed, Grandfather beat a hasty retreat into the recesses of his study and only then did Kagome allow her head to sink into her hands.

The whispers were growing coherent. She would wake to them dancing across her lips, wake to a coldness on her side as if something should have been cradled there.

Look outside to the God Tree and, almost by instinct, squint to see if there was an ominous figure watching her from there.

Raise her hand to her face, and wonder, absently, why she had such odd calluses striping across her fingers, touch a hand to her neck as if some familiar weight had been taken from it, or pass a hand across her eyes as if to clear them. She began to think that perhaps there was more to this old Kagome than a school girl.

_I don't want to remember._

Reviewer Response Corner:

Agent-doo: You're my first reviewer! Yay! Well, anyways, it is dark, and, sadly, I'm not entirely sure what is to happen. Rest assured, there'll be a happy ending...but not before I put them through hell and back! lol. Thank you!


	3. Thunder

Chapter Three: Thunder

"Kagome! Oh! We were so worried for you!" The girls, her supposed friends, clustered around her and made her feel sickeningly claustrophobic.

They smiled smiles so oddly reminiscent of her masquerading dancers. A girl walked up with a long, sliding gait.

"Yeah, we're so glad you're back," said a girl.

"Hey! I've never met, you…well I'm new. It's a pleasure." She giggled self-consciously and daintily covered her mouth to stifle a yawn. "Sorry I'm out of sorts but I put off a term paper, and, well, you know how it is. I'm _so _tired!"

Smiling and allowing for Kagome's inspection, she seemed to be looking for something in her too. She was quite tall, Kagome guessed around five ten, and of obvious European descent. She had shining, coppery hair and dark eyes. She didn't have a graceful figure, more of an hourglass one, but she carried herself like a queen.

"Well, I'm Eleanor. A pleasure…"

"Kagome." She smiled for what seemed like the first time in a long while and took the proffered hand. "Nice to meet you too."

She did not see Eleanor until the next day. It was P.E., her second period, and drizzling, making the grass slippery and wet.

"Kagome! Wait up!" Eleanor was running, her long legs stretching in front of her and her mouth curving into a smile. "Hey! What's up?" At Kagome's blank stare, she elaborated, "Sorry, I forget one can't translate Japanese word for word. Here; how are you? Guess what? We're up for archery today!"

Her smile was infectious and Kagome could only smile with her.

"So what's America like?" Kagome asked, easing herself down onto the bleachers to wait for their teacher.

"I lived in Southern California, and well, it's nothing like Japan." She waved a base-ball knuckled hand towards the rolling green of the field. "It was very brown for one- we lived in a desert, close to the border of Mexico- and it got up to 110˚ in the summer. I like it here much better, at any rate."

Kagome nodded, and the teacher waved them over.

"Ever handled a bow? Any one of you?" Kagome felt her breath quicken for reasons unknown to her. "No? Okay. Volunteers to try?"

Kagome hesitantly raised her hand, although she could not fathom why. The teacher's eyes lighted on her.

"Ah, our quiet one! Kagome, why don't you come up?" Eleanor shot her a grin and cheered.

Kagome picked her way down the bleachers to stand before the teacher.

"Here, hold it like this, and pull the string- oh, you've got it! A natural!"

There was something missing from her back and she felt its loss more than ever as she pulled armguards up her forearm.

"May I?" She asked, gesturing to the pile of arrows at the teacher's feet.

"If you feel you've got it, go ahead." The teacher folded her arms and looked on curiously as Kagome chose three- _I could fletch better than these-_ Kagome shook her head from side to side angrily.

She put them on the table before her and lined up with the target, listening to the whispers of the girls behind her. _I hope I can do this! Why did I raise my hand?_ She thought despairingly.

She breathed in- the teacher said something but she could no longer hear her- there were the voices, whispering her into insanity but she only saw the target, only heard the wind…there was a shade upon the field.

It held up a hand beseechingly, wavering and then solidifying. It was herself, but it different clothing- such cold eyes!- beseeching her, humbling itself to beg that she not do- do- something…

An anger as she had never known consumed her mind-_red!-_ she drew the string-the calluses!- in three graceless motions she fired off three shots in rapid secession.

There was a crack, like thunder, deafening screams and silence. No wind stirred the trees, but there was something underneath her shirt-that weight!- It was perfect, a joining…whole…

She reached under her shirt and pulled up the flawless gem to catch the light. She felt her tears fall, run down her jaw, from her chin, fall upon the stone.

Light…_The bad thing about light is that when you look into it, you can never imagine there having been a dark._

Reviewer's Corner:

Agent-doo- I hope this chapter is up to your expectations. . And I'm really glad you share that opinion!

Yavi: . Now why would I give that away? Oh, and Fred and Jim weren't bad…they didn't molest her or anything. Got 2 go. Bye!


	4. Bloody Red

The sun set brilliantly; night's net crawling across on gossamer strands of fiery tendrils across the cheek of dusk.

Two witnesses stood to watch the triumph from a cliff over looking the dozing city. One could only watch the golden tear carve a trail across the bell of the sky. Ebony strands swept down her back and across her pearled lips, yet her cloudy eyes were for one thing.

The golden heart beat its last and fell behind the distant mountains.

"Eleanor-chan?" Kagome asked. The girl beside her, hair lose and floating in the seeming of a glowing coronet, smiled and offered her a flower crown. "Why do you think I lost my memory?"

Eleanor leaned back into the grass, resting on her elbows and catching a piece of her hair between her fingers and watching it catch the light.

"Hmm? What do I think? Oh here." She gave her a gentle smile, continuing with a faraway look.

"There are any number of possibilities for you not to remember- it could be too painful,or perhaps too harmful and yourmind has decided thatit's bestyou don't remember.Would you rather that you gothrough apain sogreat that you'vealready forced yourself to forget once? It's a potent question, don't answer it now."

Kagome considered the girl and the problem she posed for a moment, emotion flickering in her eyes. She felt distinctly betrayed. "You know more than you're telling."

"Yeah," Eleanor said softly.

The stars were coming up and they turned their eyes skyward.

-Kagome-

She almost wept.

The God Tree wept with her, she felt, shared her burden, and finally drew her to it.

She came unwillingly, walking with her head down and shoulders hunched, to the tree. She took no notice of the crushed blooms beneath her but only of the gnarled roots that cradled her broken soul.

She lay both hands upon one, running the pads of her fingers of the rough bark, and the pressing her cheek to it. It was in that first contact, her cheek soft against the wood, that she could almost clearly hear the voices.

"Sango…you really must return to the village; she will not return…" Male. It faded out and a female's took the place of it.

"I feel closer to her here than anywhere…"

"Why did she leave? When's she coming…" It was a child's voice, rough with untempered sorrow.

"I don't know, I just…" It was the man again.

"Inuyasha's gone mad, hasn't he?" The child said, but now muffled.

"He's just very, very sad…"

The voices faded away as Kagome pulled her cheek away from the tree, her mind reeling, her heart hammering, something was pulling at her conscience.

She contemplated fainting; somehow the idea seeming very appealing at the moment. She shook her head and let it rest upon her folded arms, shying away from the tree.

Inuyasha…

Reviewer's Corner:

agent-doo: Bah humbug! I do hope you're happy! >. I was perfectly content with this chapter until I reread your review and then decided it wasn't good enough. -sighs sorrowfully- It's not fair.


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